Tony Williams, born in Chicago and raised in Boston, was the most influential and inventive drummer of the post-bop era, and only 23 when photographed by Jack Robinson on November 23, 1969. He was playing with Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock in the “Second Great Quintet” when he was just seventeen and at the time of this photograph had just set up his own rock-jazz trio, the Tony Williams Lifetime. It was a pioneering fusion group, combining jazz with rhythm and blues and rock. Vogue described Williams as “the drummer of the impatient generation.” “I’m bored with nearly everything,“ he said, “I want the best.”